Евгений Онегин (П.И. Чайковского), Действие 2ое Картина 1ая.
The Metropolitan Opera's production of Tchaikovsky's most popular opera.
You can find an English translation of the libretto at (choose English language at top of page - D/E toggle):http://www.opera-guide.ch/libretto.ph...
This part begins after Triquet's serenade for Tatiana.
ONEGIN
Aren't you dancing, Lensky?
You're standing around like some Childe Harold!
What's up with you?
LENSKY
With me? Nothing.
I'm admiring you;
What a fine friend you are!

Gay Rights Groups Disrupt New York Met Opening Night

Anti-Putin protesters demonstrating outside the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center in New York on Monday.

As opera lovers inside New York City's Metropolitan Opera sat in silent anticipation of the new season's first sounds, what they heard was not the introduction to Pyotr Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" but shouts of protest against recently passed legislation that bans the promotion of LGBT relationships in Russia.

"Putin, end your war on Russian gays!" shouted a member of a New York-based LGBT organization, unfurling a rainbow flag. His three colleagues joined him, chanting "Anna, your silence is killing Russian gays! Valery, your silence is killing Russian gays!"

The activists inside the theater were peacefully escorted out. A few dozen protestors also gathered Monday evening in front of the theater, part of the Lincoln Center arts complex on the west side of Manhattan.

Jere Keys / Flickr

Protest flyer being handed out at Metropolitan Opera Gala on Sept. 23.

Valery Gergiyev, Russia's most famous conductor and the head of St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater, is conducting for the Metropolitan's performances of “Eugene Onegin,” while Mariisnky soloist Anna Netrebko plays one of the two lead roles. Netrebko, who holds dual Russian and Austrian citizenship and currently resides in Vienna, is one of international opera's leading lights.

Both Netrebko and Gergiyev have also been vocal supporters of President Vladimir Putin, who signed the anti-gay “propaganda” bill into law earlier this year and has led a drive by Russian authorities to promote conservative values.

After the incident, Netrebko issued a statement on her Facebook page saying, "As an artist, it is my great joy to collaborate with all of my wonderful colleagues — regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. I have never and will never discriminate against anyone."

She did not mention the Russian law specifically. Gergiyev has declined to comment.

"Eugene Onegin" is a staple of the Russian opera canon, and many musicologists believe that Tchaikovsky's score for the opera based on Alexander Pushkin's verse novel was strongly driven by resentment of his own homosexuality.

Peter Gelb, the director of the Metropolitan, wrote an op-ed for Bloomberg News this weekend, explaining that he deplores Russia's anti-gay law but did not want to dedicate the theater's performances to the protesters' cause. He also said he was "proud to present Russia's great gay composer."

The Metropolitan's new season will be dominated by Russian music, with Dmitry Shostakovich's "The Nose" and Alexander Borodin's "Prince Igor" operas joining "Eugene Onegin" on the season's playbill.

As opera lovers in New York City's Metropolitan Opera froze in silent anticipation of the new season's first sounds, what they heard was not the introduction to Pyotr Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin," but shouts of protest against the recen...

Sometimes it really does suck to be gay. In addition to the usual hard work – the recruiting of innocents, the destruction of the institution of marriage, compulsory brunch – there's been an unusually high volume of international bigotry and bad news to put up with this week.

Take the recent diss from Guido Barilla, the chairman of his family's famous pasta company. He announced on air that he would never feature a gay family in one of Barilla's ads. Clearly unaware that gay people can actually hear what he says on the radio, Barilla added that he had "no respect for adoption by gay families because this concerns a person who is not able to choose." He then encouraged those of us who found his statements offensive to eat another brand.

Within hours, Italian activists and politicians obliged by calling for a boycott. The hashtag "#boycottbarrilla!" began trending on Twitter and popping up all over Facebook, along with a trove of brilliant satiricimages. American blogger John Aravosis, who speaks Italian, nailed the lid on by providing a helpful translation of Barilla's remarks on his Americablog site, plus regular updates of Barilla's frantic attempts to backtrack. At last count, he and the company had issued three separate statements, including one non-sequiturial rambling from Barilla about women's central role in the family, plus an awful "I'm-sorry-if-anyone-was-offended" pseudo-apology that only made him sound like a bigger jerk than ever.

Surpassing even Barilla's unique blend of homophobia and cynicism, the International Olympic Committee issued a statement that it is "fully convinced that Russia will respect the Olympic charter, which prohibits discrimination of any kind". There are two major obstacles to understanding how the IOC reached this conclusion. The first is theextensive documentation, via every imaginable form of media, of Russia's persecution of LGBT people under the country's new, virulently homophobic laws. The second is the IOC charter itself, which states – as this helpful image from Boycott Sochi 2014 reminds us – "Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic movement". It also compels the IOC to "fight against" and "take action against" what the charter calls "discrimination of any kind".

Anyone who wants to know what's responsible for the IOC's strange blindness to the purpose of its own charter – its conviction that none of the anti-gay witch hunt now in full swing in Russia counts as "discrimination" so long as a mob doesn't actually disrupt the figure skating – need look no further than the bottles of Coca-Cola artfully placed in front of the IOC members at their press conference. It's clear that the Olympics – under the auspices of the IOC and the Olympics' topsponsors, including Coke, Visa, General Electric, McDonald's, Procter & Gamble – are no longer about integrity or even sport. The occasional glimpse of skiing or snowboarding is just a brief interruption between commercials.

One can only hope that their same deep focus on market forces, along with a wave of protests urging action, will continue to rattle these corporations, possibly even to the point of actually doing something. They would do well to contemplate the effect on their brand of being linked to everything that happens under their logos in Sochi and the damage of winding up on the wrong side of history.

The Metropolitan Opera ignored pleas to dedicate its opening night to Russia's LGBT population as a protest against the country's draconian anti-gay laws. This, despite featuring a production of "Eugene Onegin" written by the closeted gay Russian composer Tchaikovsky, directed by two lesbians (Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw), and featuring two Putin enthusiasts – the conductor Valery Gergiev and the soprano Anna Netrebko. Ultimately, LGBT activists carried the day by bringing so much attention, through outside pickets and an inside action, that every newspaper review devoted half of their coverage to the plight of Russian gays. But it's disturbing to see the Met deploy the IOC's same twisted arguments – that somehow holding the Olympics in Russia, or featuring two major Putin supporters in one's cast isn't a political statement, but protesting either of those actions is.

Finally, in a huge loss to all human rights supporters, Russian LGBT activist Alexei Davydov died at the age of 36. He was the first to challenge Russia's new "gay propaganda law" by standing on the steps of the Children's Library in Moscow with a sign reading "Gay is normal." Millions of people around the world watched the TV footage of him being hauled off by the police. The police also broke his arm in 2011, after arresting him at a protest defending freedom of assembly for all Russians. Being a gay activist in Russia, and therefore, unemployable, Davydov died poor. His friends are now scrambling to raise funds for his funeral.

Here’s a Facebook post of mine you might find useful: “Russian LGBT activist Alexei Davydov, one of the participants in the previous action at which activists displayed a banner reading “Homophobia is the religion of trashy people,” has been arrested for an act of solitary protest carried out on Kaluzhskaya Square. Davydov unfurled a banner displaying the words, “Being gay is normal” in front of a children’s library. Davydov had previously applied for permission to hold the action and was denied on the basis of the new law prohibiting the “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations amongst minors,” making this refusal the first official application of the federal law.

This courageous action can be considered one of the first steps towards establishing the range of applicability of the new, ambiguous law. So far, it confirms the law’s symbolic nature, as it has been applied only in a situation deliberately designed to provoke it into effect. It has not been reported whether he will actually be charged under the new law.

Russia should join NATO: the benefits for the Global Security are enormous

To reformulate Lord Ismay's phrase: 1) Take Russia in, 2) Continue keeping Germany down, 3) Assert and exercise the US leadership position within the NATO as a unifying and directing force and vector.

"Ловец Человеков"

Connected? The halo is there. And the Book is there. And the disciples are there. But where is the Light of Understanding, in this big curved dark tunnel of a vision? Where is the big red dot? Where is the new beginning?

Russia and US Presidential Elections of 2016 - Google News

Russia international behavior - Google News

RUSSIA and THE WEST

russia ukraine - Google News

West, Russia, Putin

US - Russia relations - Google News

Hillary Clinton and rock group Pussy Riot

"Great to meet the strong & brave young women from #PussyRiot, who refuse to let their voices be silenced in #Russia. 1:09 PM - 4 Apr 2014" - Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton tweeted a picture Friday of her posing with members of the anti-Vladimir Putin punk rock group Pussy Riot. Clinton met with the women during the "Women in the World Summit" in New York. The group has emerged as chief opponents of Putin, and three members were jailed in 2012 after an anti-Putin performance at a church. The tweet has been re-tweeted almost 10,000 times.